On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:17 pm, David Chelimsky wrote:
> On 10/17/07, Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think you'll BOTH learn more and be far more efficient if you pair
>> together rather than giving him a bit of theory/tips & tricks and
>> then
>> leaving him to his own devices.
>> Hear, hear!!!!!!!
Yep you were both right! Today I sat down with Jim, took over typing
for a while and let him jump in as soon as he looked like he knew
what was going on. Was about 10x as productive as before, and made
me realise (a) you need a lot of experience to catch edge cases and
spec obscure Ruby code (unfair to dump on someone just learning),
and, more importantly (b) BDD is much more of an art than a science.
I learnt something priceless too: I found I was trying to solve
problems in my head in an attempt to avoid writing bad code, and
tried to explain things on paper when really, I didn't know what the
solution was anyway. BAD IDEA! Eventually I said to him - I'm going
to pretend you're not here and just work like I normally would. It
worked, and now I know that the secret to BDD is KEEP BASHING THE
KEYBOARD! It's amazing how quickly you can make useful, elegant code
out of complete garbage. I've had to apologise several times for the
shocking stuff I was writing, tell him "don't worry, I don't care
it's ugly, we'll see to that when it's working".
Ashley
--
blog @ http://aviewfromafar.net/
linked-in @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymoran
currently @ home
--
blog @ http://aviewfromafar.net/
linked-in @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymoran
currently @ home